Used People Store

[The Concept]

Before joining the Used People Store, customers are asked a series of questions so they can choose their level of membership. For example:

-Does your partner say you snore, try to roll you off the bed and have you ever hit your head?

(be honest).

-Do you have a partner?

The Used People Store encourages individual memberships and there are no family discounts.

“It’s like Botox… for the emotions.”

“I went in to see if I could get a date, [turns out] I’m not even that Used at all. There’s a calculator where you rub your thumb and they take a sample of your goldenness using acid. “

Now parts of the inner-facilities are reserved for the Church of the Lamb’s Gyros (which meets every Saturday but requires an escort). Barbera Stubbins would love to be your counselor.

Next.

Carrey Adbuhadalakas just lost his job, [kinda], was pulled over by Immigrations and Customs and did not have the opportunity to explain his case we pending. So he put his foot down on the gas pedal and ran. Instead of going on the road with cash and hoping that the Federal Forces would stay on the interstate, Carrey was able to get off the freeway, looking for a bathroom.

He found Used People.

“I’m sorry can I help you, are you lost?” Barbera Stubbins is amazingly sweet and smells like she just baked some cookies. There’s a trace of flour on the right side of her lapel.

“This where I get a new identity? You offer discounts for school board members?”

Barbera takes his arm and starts signing a song. She stops before the ticket dispenser, pulls, and slaps a large sticker on Carrey’s chest, just to the right of his heart. It has the shape of a bullseye but has nothing to do with bulls nor eyes. There are no snipers on the second story waiting for Barbera to get five feet away because Used People doesn’t really sell urban military experiences, no matter what you heard.

“1135. Can I call you that or would you like something else?”

Carrey looks around and can’t find cameras, doesn’t see a guard at the door. He forgot that he came in for a clean restroom, maybe a hotdog like Cosco? There are no dollar fifty hot dogs like Cosco. In fact, he doesn’t see anyone eating at all.

“Can I use the restroom, please?”

“Certainly Mr. 1135, but are you sure you don’t save that for the event?” Barbera squinches her face when she says this. The woman is very expressive and was once told that she could have been an actor and that she should avoid poker tables.

“Ecclair?”

Again, no one else in the crowds of walking people is eating anything. Carrey senses that there should be things to buy, sections of demonstrations like a convention, maybe some weight lifting equipment? Instead, people are lazily waltzing from door to door which presumably goes to room to room. All the doors are white except for the door handles that have a faint essence of pewter. It’s a wonder anyone knows where they are going in the Used People Store because nothing’s marked.

“Come on, let’s get you out of those things.”

Carrey takes a last look at the door to see if any flashing blue lights are coming in the distance. He expects that they will look like lightning in the hills, his spidey-sense is tingling as if his ancestors didn’t hunt wild animals but were the hunted.

“Where did you say I could use the bathroom.”

Barbera escorts him pass a woman on a headset, her wrinkles are slowly fading the ore she talks on the headset and the women laugh and wave to eachother. Carrey doesn’t realize her toes are in a green/yellow briney bath beneath the desk.

They pass the Yellow Bird Room, Barbera stops and asks Carrey to take a peak inside. There are twenty yellow birds appearing to stoop on a wall without any measurable perch. The walls are white to intensify the affect of the yellow birds with long beaks. Some beaks are hooked and some beaks have human lips at the end. “I don’t eat worms.” [sqawk]

“What devilry is this?” Carried slams the door. His eyes go wide and he looks at Barbera like she’s not from the same planet where he started. “Are you a witch?”

“No, silly. We don’t call them witches anymore. Did you want to leave a tee tee sample now?”

Carrey crossed his legs. He didn’t want to give the Used People Store any part of his body. He looked back toward the double wide doors of the entrance and it seemed nearly twice as far away.

Barbera continued walking in the expectation that he wouldn’t just stand in the hallway. The hallway blended with the floors and the walls, white except the door knobs.

“Are you very alright, Mr. 1135? We have an excellent medial staff if you feel ill.”

Carrey scrunched in a forward hunch and suddenly felt like his bladder was most of his body. He looked left, then right, felt no one was really watching. He felt a warmthness like putting a toe in the bath for the first time that can trigger the autonomous signal to let it all go. He really wanted to let it go…

“Come now, you looked distressed.”

Barbera gently nudged him to the closest door where a six foot tall plastic cup made up the entire room. There was a ladder, of course. No one at Used People expects a man over forty to have excellent waterworks and fill the cup without making a mess.

Barbera clicked a lightswitch which was also white. It appeared to have no topological change to the room because the lights were all ready excluding a gentle glow and there appeared to be no necessary source. Just light.

“Would you like some mood music? I’m gonna just wait out in the hall.”

Carrey was positively near tears, the feeling so intense, not knowing if he could climb the step ladder, balance and….

Barbera pointed to the white towels on the wall. Of course she did. “Obviously they are sanitary towels that have all the antibacteria properties you would need.” Then she did step out and Mr. Carrey felt as the dog who must spin and spin around. He could not spin but looked in every direction for a camera, looked at the mighty six foot tall plastic specimen cup with the markings on the side, faded white type, which shows how closer he might come to his goal of reaching the top.

Click.

**

Jasmine Kottex was not running from the law because she was duly sworn as an interstate customs officers, a border patrol agent and a former interpreter. She had the authority of what some would call “the fuss” (not “the fuzz”) and he was in a sharp competition with her fellow agents to detain the highest priority targets so that their budget would be stuffed with funding from the Big Beautiful Bill.

“Where is he?”

Barbera Stubbins had no understanding what the agent was talking about. Kottex called in her radio, “We have a 302 on my fixed location. [sizzle/click]”

Jasmine turned back to the woman and held up a pair of cuffs, swung them around her finger and stated dryly, “One of you is coming home with me in five seconds. “

Barbara clapped her hands. [just once] “Speck-tacular. I love your enthusiasm. Come with me.”

She walked the Agent all the way through the white entrance hall that slowly opened up to wandering walkways, all blending in white. One could not even imagine if they were more than just blue screens except for a single piece of chewing gum on the floors by Barber’s heels.

She smiled, bent down, her ankles had never seen a tan, the hairless legs going up to the blue robin eggs skirt, a few lines of golden squares if anyone was kneeling and looking for hem lines. Barbera put the spent chewing gum in her mouth and expressed by outward hand that her desire was this way….

“This way…”

Agent Kottex’s hand never left her service weapon by her side. Her bun in a tight knot made the facial expressions seem to bureaucratic standards. Soldiers aren’t suppose to take joy in winning a capture competition. Pride is a double meaning in the American vernacular; pride for the job and foolish pride. The kind of pride that lets everyone know how much you donated to charity. That pride where you know that your partner is having Carrey Adbuhadalakas’ car towed just outside.

Just outside.

“What is this? Where are you taking me? “

Jasmine was alert, she didn’t know why she felt the presence of trouble. The warm feeling below her service belt was giving the alarming sensation that she had involuntarily relieved herself in uniform.

Jasmine took out her gun. She cringed because that is not the exacting look she wanted when she pushed the prisoner in handcuffs through the double doors into light. That was not the look becoming of an officer, dually sworn…

“Just this way, please.”

Barbera opened the door and stepped aside.

Jasmine stepped suredly, wedged the door with her boot, took one look inside and spun around.

The gun nearly at Barbera’ face. “What is that?”

Suddenly Angel Barbera began to glow, she took her heads from the resting lapidary position and spread them out as if great things would from her armpits and in the foreground.

“We are the used people STORE. That’s what we do, sweety.”

The ambient lights changed from brilliance to gray, then faded into the nexus of twilight. Small spackles of red sparkling planets on the ceiling. Far away.

All things are toxic to the nature of some others. They must be stored for the future when adequate facilities can recondition. The Used People Store does not care how you been hurt or how far you ran. They believe in the founder’s mission: Trust the Process.

No one is sure when the process will be delivered.